The Great Night
Published on 7. June 2012
Book
Paperback/Softback
304 pages
978-1-84708-321-0 (ISBN)
Description
On Midsummer's Eve three heartsick lovers are trapped in San Francisco's Buena Vista Park. Ill met by moonlight, they are stalked by a psychopathic Puck, in thrall to a beautiful Titania, and ambushed by a homeless musical theatre troupe. Together they must survive a night that might just repair their hearts, if it doesn't destroy them first.
Selected by the New Yorker as one of the best young writers in America, Adrian has created a singularly playful, moving and humorous novel - a story that effortlessly crosses the borders between reality and dreams, suffering and magic, and mortality and immortality.
Selected by the New Yorker as one of the best young writers in America, Adrian has created a singularly playful, moving and humorous novel - a story that effortlessly crosses the borders between reality and dreams, suffering and magic, and mortality and immortality.
Reviews / Votes
Chris Adrian is the most extraordinary novelist you've never heard of. The book is surprisingly, very funny. And moving. And quite unlike anything I've read so far this century...If you're willing to enter something magical, something dazzling and heartbreaking, then Adrian is a writer for you. -- Patrick Ness * Guardian * Bewitching... This magical and fearless work is a near-blueprint of what a novel ought to be -- Olivia Laing * Observer * A work of sustained imagination. Interweaving stories and situations that are in turn kitsch, camp, wry and heartbreaking ... a profoundly humane and moving work -- Adam O'Riordan * Sunday Telegraph * A fabulous, crazy, imaginative journey -- Viv Groskop * Daily Telegraph * A beguiling, troubling and undeniably potent brand of fiction ... His writing is evocative and unsettling in equal measure ... Adrian gets under your skin and stays there -- Jake Wallis Simons * Independent on Sunday * This wonderful novel is much more than a simple adaptation ... In Adrian's hands this is a play about grief. The saddest and most lovely scenes of this sad and lovely book are those in which the fairy queen waits in a San Francisco hospital. Her child is sick, and her magic cannot save him ...Heartbreak too waits behind the experiences of the young lovers Henry, Molly and Will. "I cannot straighten the paths you make crooked with your dreams," one of the fairies tells one of the mortals, and this is what Adrian has taken most powerfully from the play: the sad knowledge that heartbreak and love are necessary transformations, ones we need but cannot control -- Daniel Swift * Financial Times * Adrian has an extraordinary imagination as well as talent to burn ... It's spellbinding to see Adrian reshaping Shakespeare's narrative to his own ends -- Alastair Mabbott * Herald *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 198 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 19 mm
Weight
213 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-84708-321-0 (9781847083210)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Person
Selected by the New Yorker as one of the '20 Under 40', CHRIS ADRIAN is the author of Gob's Grief, The Children's Hospital, A Better Angel and The Great Night. He is a Pediatric Hematologist/Oncologist at Columbia University. He was awarded a New York Public Library Fellowship in 2011.